Digital Integration in Religious Education
This semester in Year 7 Religious Education, students are studying the Gospels and perspectives on respecting human life.
Led by Deputy Principal of Middle School and Religion Teacher Mr Jean-Paul Papineau, teachers have been utilising digital scaffolds via the iPad Numbers app to infuse creativity into their classes.
Instead of students being provided with a traditional paper workbook, they were able to use a simple scaffold in Numbers that helps structure learning and engage students creatively. Each activity was broken down into tabs, with a specific creative focus. For example, in Section C students had to record audio reflections and insert photos to an Image Gallery to support their research on the Gospels.
There were instructions on how to make the scaffold clear and simple to use for the Year 7s as explained by Mr Papineau:
“I wanted my students to show learning in creative ways - I asked students to insert a series of pictures, drawings, or even an animated video to explain what happens in the Gospel story”
Mr Jean-Paul Papineau
The use of iWork apps to create digital resources has helped our teaching staff to live our Vision for Learning, showing how simple it is to transform a conventional activity into something that is challenging and at the same time, uniquely creative.
By adding metacognitive self-assessment tools and checklists throughout the Number scaffold, students have been encouraged to reflect on their learning. Checklists are a powerful way of reminding students what they have learnt or highlighting gaps in their knowledge. Research shows when students are aware of their own learning, they are likely to retain learning and make more progress.
We are proud that at Corpus Christi College, our staff are always given opportunities to increase their knowledge. Staff that were interested in learning more about integrating Number scaffolds into their class work, have been invited to attend a three-part workshop running in Term 4.
Jamie Clark
Director of Digital Integration
If you’d like to see more Digital Creativity and how our teachers integrate technology in the Classroom, check out the hashtag, #CorpusCreates on Twitter for snap-shots of the course in action.
For Media Enquiries please contact: communications@corpus.wa.edu.au